River Dee Piking and Rixton Clay Pit Roach

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update and I had no problem with inspiration for this weeks blog update as having watched the final interview given by John Wilson before he leaves the UK which was published by the Angling Times on You tube I am full of inspiration and have straight away loaded the laptop to get my views down on the blog,

This is the video below:

I grew up fishing with my dad and have fond memories of us both sitting in the house between fishing trips watching John Wilson videos and as anyone from this era will know i am not talking about the new fancy videos that Discovery Shed repeat time and time again, I am talking about the old videos that started off with the loud introduction a sound that is really hard to put into words but a sound that lives with you for a lifetime.  I always remember my dad complaining about the amount of wildlife in the shows and he wanted to see the fishing and at the time I was with him on that but growing up and watching the videos back those part of the videos en-capture everything that angling is for myself and I now appreciate those moments as much as the fishing on show.  My fond Memories of the shows include the one where he fishes he river in full flood below a bridge catching nets of nice roach trotting a float and afterwards when the river has dropped he comes down in a kayak and it just shows how high the river was and then he shows you he was actually trotting over a field!, magical stuff.  In later years I have enjoyed his cameo appearances in some of Martin Bowlers films like Caching the Impossible where he fishes with Bernard Cribbins and that line by Bernard "two anglers, in the Autumn of their years" just encompassed how fishing can last with you for a whole lifetime for me and its true it never leaves you, at least i hope its true.

Returning to the interview John is asked a few questions which he answers honestly and openly and the first I want to cover is when John questions whether the Environment Agency has kept to their promise to maintain and protect the inland lakes and rivers given the 25 million pound of angling revenue they receive annually from anglers licences.  It is a very thought provoking comment given the fact that species like otters where helped to be reintroduced by the environment agency and the damage that these creatures, through no fault of their own i may add, are causing on the rivers and surrounding waterways.  In the piece John says about the environment agency spending more time on surveys than protecting the fish in our rivers and although this may well be the case with regards to the demise of the river roach and other certain aspects of British angling I have to say after following the Environment Agency on Twitter and seeing some of the work they carry out they do more than just complete Surveys although i do feel the spending of flood defences and some of the butchering they do to the bank sides of some streams when cutting back tress to prevent flooding is questionable but as I mention to in my upcoming piece for the angling gazette the stocking they did after the pollution on the river dee in 2000 was first class.

Cormorants and Otters where the running theme of this interview and I must say at the moment i fall into the bracket of anglers John mentions in the piece that has not had their fishing decimated by otters yet although it is a fact that the otter is slowly creeping in as populations grow on the River Gowy, Weaver, Dee, Ribble and Mersey which are all rivers close to myself.   The other predator, the cormorant, I have crossed paths with more than once and also seen the damage they can do both on the River Dee where flocks of 15 to 30 birds are a regular sight in winter to the picturesque Cicily Mill where I spent many a morning in the early years in Warrington Anglers watching cormorants swallowing big crucian's and tench bit what is the answer?  A cull is what many anglers call fro but just look at the protests that are going on now with badger culling and the bad name it is giving the farmers and activists that have give the go ahead for the cull, people forget sometimes that angling already is not seen in the best of lights given the fact we stick hooks in fish and pull them out of their natural environment for sport and does the sport really need to further degrade its name by being seen as a pastime that sees anglers killing uncontrollable amounts of sea birds as lets face it there is no way of knowing the numbers involved once a cull in given the go ahead.  The problem of cormorants is a real issue that is dramatically shaping the angling world of today and is a problem that is of course our own doing by forcing these birds inland by abusing the stocks of fish around our inland coasts lest not forget but the solution to the problem is not one that is going to come easy or quickly I feel,  otters, again a problem caused by humans introducing them in areas that are not able to sustain them over time is one that wont be solved quickly but i do feel in the end the solution will involve some sort of controlling of numbers or if left long enough nature finding its own balance over time.

The next point I want to cover is one I am 100 percent in agreement with John over and that is the demise of what is seen as proper fishing in this country over the past 20 years. I remember fishing on the banks of the local canal for perch and roach and if i was really lucky a big bronze bream being armed only with a "snatcher" pole, maggots and of course Van Der Enyde ground bait and we used to share the bank with many children out with their parents learning to fish  and no doubt had we been closer to a river my dad would have taken me to the river  at a much younger age to learn trotting, an art i only learnt a few years ago.  Now days the children of today, baring a few exceptions, it is all about carp carp carp and although their is nothing wrong with this part of angling it worries me the lack of youngsters I see on the banks of the river and in youngsters i mean anglers under the age of say 25 there is just no one coming through especially where trotting is concerned.  In the video John, who owned a tackle shop himself, mentions about the shops of today being 90 percent full of carp hooks, bolt rigs and bivvy's and its true I mean like three weeks ago I asked my dad to pick me up a pack of size 20 hooks form the local shop, the response he got? "sorry we don't sell them any more as their is no market for them", speaks volumes for me and another sign of the times is how hard it is to find a tackle dealer that sells squats, for shops that border canals its a travesty for squats not to be sold they should be selling out of these to the point you have to put your order in not having to scour the net for suppliers if you want them.  Don't get me wrong I love my carp fishing and it has a place in angling as much as any other aspect of angling and it is not my place to say how people should fish but i just feel the basics of fishing are not instilled into out children any more so how can we expect them to move into other avenues of fishing when the lessons they have been taught is around casting a bolt rig and waiting in a bivy for a bite?, well i did say at the beginning i was ready to write this blog haha.

One thing John this say and i think it was his last comments on the film was to anglers out there to experience all of the British isles and not stay fishing the same venues you fish week in week out and although it is very hard in this financial climate to justify travelling 4 hours to fish a new river is a comment that has stuck with me a bit and hopefully in time the financial constraints of the world we are in will allow me to travel to the River Wye and the Severn around Shrewsbury and the river Trent to experience some of the other rivers this wonderful country has to offer but for now at least i intend to bask in the beauty of a winter on the River Dee and River Ribble.

Before we get onto this weeks blog update we received some information this week on the the new section of the River Alyn Warrington anglers have leased and although this information is being drip fed to us its been released that the stretch is situated in Caergwree and is marked up and if you can find it you can fish it apparently. More good news this week is Warrington have joined forces with the other angling clubs on Budworth Mere and now have access to fishing from the boat club end of the mere which is very good news as this area is reported to be deeper close in and wont mean anglers having to wade a 50 metres into the mere to find a decent depth hopefully.

on to this weeks update:

River Dee Pike and Rixton Clay Pit Roach

All my weekend sessions start on the Friday night for me as after publishing my weekly blog i move onto preparation for the session the next day whether that be getting the Castor's out to turn to a bright red autumnal colour or just getting my gear organised its all part of the preparation for the session the next day.  Friday evening it was time spent tying up some hook lengths for the fishing the next day so out came the Bayer perlon line and the size 20 hooks and whilst the missus watched the end of Coronation street i was well on my way to completing a good batch of rigs that will see me through a few sessions, snags permitting of course. 

The river dee was the destination for the day and we left in good time to get on the banks for first light, my plan was to fish the stick float for the entire day but also packed my pike as the river has been a bit out of sorts of late for the silvers, at least where we have been going at least so the pike rod is always a good alternative to try if the day is slow and boy was a glad i packed it.  

Walking the bank to check out the pegs we could see that the river was low and well down on normal level in fact it is the lowest i have ever seen the Dee since i started fishing her.  We both settled on swims that had some depth them and hastily set about setting  up for the session ahead.  As the light developed we could both see that the slack on this side of the river was enormous covering nearly half the river and there was little if any flow to trot the float down so much so leaving anything more than a few inches of line on the deck would see the float sit stationary.  In my head i thought well if the roach are here i could be in for a good day as they really do hug the slacks on the dee but i was lest optimistic about the possibility of some decent dace action. 

The early exchanges saw me catching the one fish that seems to start of most sessions on the river dee the Gudgeon and it was during the early exchanges i connected with a proper gudgeon it was not so long as it was really wide you could have strapped a saddle to its back it was so thick! It was a clonking big gudgeon and one i definitely took more than a passing moment to admire and what a pleasure it was to see such a beautiful example of the species on the bank. 

A few more gudgeon graced my palm before i got into my first proper fish of the session in the form of a morale boosting roach.  This gave me great confidence because as mentioned before if these fish where around in any numbers i could be on to a really special days fishing.  This initial roach was followed by another around the same size and then another slightly bigger and at this point i was really starting to think a special session could be on the cards, little did i know this would be the penultimate roach of the session. 

The swim continued to develop after that roach and it saw me catch a few dace and that final roach of the session but around 3 hours into the session the swim completely died and saw me trotting away for two hours with only a foul hooked flattie as reward.  I changed depth, the line i was fishing and the amount of feed to no avail and trotting really is one of those types of angling where the hard times are really hard as there is nothing more soul sapping that trotting away with no reward at all.

The swims where very quiet for both of us form that point on and with little chance of that looking like changing i took the opportunity to try and add to my pike tally for the season so it was out with the pike gear and away with the float fishing gear.  In went a paternoster rig just off the marginal  shelf and i sat back and waited for what i hoped would be a toothy visitor. 

What actually happened was a completely new experience for me in my short pike fishing career as not long after introducing the bait i saw the float going mad and moving towards the inside bank so i struck and instantly there was resistance bit it was short lived as the pike spat the bait so i replaced the rod closer to the margin and this time i could see the bait and the pike came in but completely missed the bait all together on a number of occasions it came right up and swam along side the bait but did not take it, very strange behaviour indeed.  

I decided to wait it out and returned the rod back off the marginal shelf and waited it out and eventually the red top of the float descended into the depths and i left it slightly longer than i normally would to make sure if it was the same pike it had time to grasp and turn the bait although i took care not to give it too long and i suppose in pike angling you get a feeling of when the right time is to set the hooks and i struck when it "just felt right".  This stroke was met with solid resistance and from the outset i could feel it was not a bug pike i was dealing with and the pike was up under the surface before i knew it.  The bait fluttered away which let me know i was in full contact with the pike and i took my time to make sure i got this pike in and my patience played off as a pike with lovely markings graced the inside of my landing net,  five pike since the start of the pike campaign i am more than made up with the start i have made and it was time to get some pictures of this nice pike weighing 7lb 110z.

After this pike we decided to pack in and have a hour or so on a small tributary of the river dee on the way home where we hoped to connect with a nice grayling or dace but before we did so we took a picture of the net of fish we had put together during the few hours trotting. 

The river we dropped back on was the tiny river Alyn and is a river i fished a long time ago and since getting to grips with the main river is one i have not been back to in a long time and boy how it has changed in that time, swims that where deep holes in the past where now dry as the river had changed course and now was flowing over to the other bank of the river and one pool in particular below the second bridge was unrecognisable to the swim i fished all those years ago.   The river when i fished it used to contain a good number of grayling and below is one of those fish from yesteryear.

The diversity of fish in this river has really changed as i never really remembered catching many dace but on this short session we caught quite few nice dace and the diversity of this river was shown with the amount of grayling, dace, trout and salmon par we caught.  The fish apart form one really nice grayling i lost at the net where all juvenile fish which goes to show the importance of this side streams and rivers where young fish can grow up before migrating into the big river they really are habitats that need our protection and us to nurture these areas by leaving some cover in the rivers for them to hide from predators in.  I fully enjoyed my few hours back on the river alyn and i will certainly be back on there soon.  One memory of the day that sticks with me is peering through the fence at the car to see this sprightly young fellow staring back at me!

Sunday  Morning Session Rixton Clay Pits

I again found myself with a bit of time free on a Sunday morning and i wasted no time at all in getting my gear sorted and heading for a few hours on Rixton Clay pits.  It is a venue that normally sees you having to arrive early to get the carp park swims so it was up and out around 6am for me and it wasn't too long before i was turning the final corner into the car park.  i expected to see one or two cars in the carp park even though the rain was belting down but to my amazement the car park was completely empty, obviously the over night rains has knocked a few fishing plans on the head and at this time of year into Christmas as the temperatures drop that will be more and more the case.  

I must admit it was quite eerie walking down to the pegs through the trees but i thought the sooner i get to the pegs and set up the sooner it will be light and time to fish so i put me head down and set about getting the peg set up ready to fish the pole and before i knew it it was light and i was setting the landing net up away from fishing. 

peg for the day

The tactic for the day was an all out silver fish approach on the pole and for the first time this season i scaled down my hook length to a pound bottom and went with a really light elastic as i wanted to land every silver fish i hit but knew full well i was probably going to lose and carp or tench i hooked into.  My bait for the day was maggot, ground bait and a change bait of worm with the hope the worm section would get me a better stamp of roach or bream.  I only had a few hours till around 11.30 on the bank and all the time in the early stages i expected another angler to turn up but the never did.

The fishing was steady from the off as was the rain and to make the session even better i was catching my target for the day in some beautifully marked roach that had that lovely blue metallic glisten to them.

I continued to catch fish for the entire session and the with around 30 minutes of the session to go i connected with a fish that was really the fish of the weekend for me in a lovely 1lb roach it filled the palm beautifully and was a good fist full of roach. 

As with all sessions they come to and end all too soon and even more so when its only a short morning session but i departed the scene really happy with my mornings efforts and on a venue as beautiful as this you can not help but enjoy a session on it and it really is amazing just how out of it you feel on the venue given the fact it is right next to a main road.  The final net was one i was happy with and the tactics will be one i will be looking at employing again on this venue as the worm really did single out the bream and better roach.

Well that is it for another weeks fishing,

till next week its,

tight lines 

Danny

Maybe Maggots Was Not the Best Idea........

A warm welcome to this weeks blog update.  This week my mind has been switching on to the upcoming start to the traditional pike season which runs from 01st October through to march next year.  In all honesty my relationship with the pike started as a very young boy on the Bridgewater canal where i used to whittle away my afternoons after school whipping the water into a foam with a wide selection of shallow diving plugs, admittedly in those early days I spent more time casting around than catching but the successes I did have live on with me to this day.

I am not going to lie here, although it would be easier to and wax lyrical about my undying love for this species that has lay dormant for years, but the truth of the matter is that these early days taught me the basics of pike fishing like how to handle and work around the dentistry of a pike but it was not till a few years ago when I started river fishing and i began to brush shoulders with the big wild crocodiles that inhabit the river that i began to not only enjoy catching the fish but started to fall in love with their enigmatic personality and their fantastic colourings they have to be one of the most beautiful fish the live in our waters.

This year esox-lucious has crossed my path a few times that has allowed me an insight as to where there are good numbers of pike to be had and none more so than on the Bridgewater canal so apart from my river outings targeting this species i am also going to try and spend some time on the local canals and my aim is to target them with dead baits which again will be a whole new world of discovery or me and as some of you may have guessed over the years i am always trying to improve my angling knowledge and skill in all areas of this fantastic sport we all love.

This week there has been a few things that have taken me away form actually writing this weeks blog well one thing in fact GTA5 cough cough which has meant I am now writing my blog late on a Friday evening whilst now being distracted by Matt Hayes's new 24 hour rod race on Discovery Shed.  I had planned to talk about my plans for this upcoming weekends fishing but after just watching this programme i have got to say how impressed i was by the fact this programme was aired it must have taken a lot of guts for Matt Hayes to go ahead with allowing this programme to be aired given the fact the hour long show see's him struggling in freezing cold conditions with only a few small grayling to show for his efforts.

In these times where angling shows are full of fish after fish being landed making our sport look incredibly easy I think it is truly inspirational for one of the greats of our sport to show that along with all us normal everyday anglers the professionals still have days where they struggle, hats off to you Mr Hayes.  I do understand that this concept does not work week in week out but its great that this series shows a true representation of what the angling year is truly like for an all seasons all weather angler.

I am often asked for hints and tips for people wanting to start up writing a blog and for me personally writing a blog that is successful you have to have a love for the sport and be willing to put a lot of your own time into it as it really does take up a lot more time than you first think when you start writing one.  The blogs that capture me are always the ones that are updated regular whether the catch or blank as i feel more connected with the writer and the fact that when they do succeed me as a reader can fully appreciate the effort that has gone into catching that fish and this is something i always aim to achieve with my blog.

Finally before we get into this weeks fishing i visited Stapley Water gardens today (Sunday) to purchase some supplies for the upcoming season ahead, why not support your local tackle shop? well i do shop at the local tackle shop each week for my bait and bits and bobs but believe it or not one of my local tackle shops no longer supply size 20 hooks as there is no demand for them! So i decided rather than risking being caught short i went to stapley today where i can walk round and try things out, well needless to say i spent more than i intended but the basics where covered!

2 spools of 5lb Drennan Float fish line
1 spool of Bayer Perlon 2lb line
2 paternoster pike rigs
2 x Animal size 18 eyed hooks
4 x Animal size 20 eyed hooks
1 x number 8 weights
1 x number 10 weights
4 floats covering 8 no 4 to `10 no 4
3m landing net pole
and the purchase i did not go for a new Shakespeare reduced form 45.99 to 29.99 :-)

The above should see me through a few months fishing all that remains now is to sort out another bulk buy of hemp seed to see us through the winter and a few more wire traces for the piking and we are all set for the winter season to come.

on to this weeks fishing:

Maybe Maggots Was not the Best Idea...

With our usual haunt the River Dee very much out of sorts we where a bit stuck this week as to where to wet a line it was a real battle between our heads and hearts in a choice of two venues the River we night fished a few weeks ago or the sankey canal in Widnes.  In our heads we knew the sankey canal would see us catching a steady net of fish and no doubt consistently through out the day to boot but our in our hearts we both wanted to fish the river the only down side being the river we where thinking of fishing can be very hit or miss and could see us completely blanking all together. 

We decided to go with our hearts and two pints of maggot and a hemp was purchased but i also popped into my bag a few frozen sprats as last time we had seen a few jack pike patrolling the inside margin so the plan was if one of these turned up we would try and tempt them with a sprat using the sink and draw method.  

We set up in the deeper sections of the river that just screamed out chub and dace and had a good 40-50 yards between our pegs.  We settled down in our swims and i decided to go with my 17ft float rod over my smaller 13ft rod and this was just down the the fact i wanted as much control as possible and to be able to hold that float back hard over my bed of hemp seed this 17ft rod would cover at least half the river but would give me this much needed extra control over the line and float.  With the chance of a barbel and chub and not wanting to loose any fish i hooked i went with my main line all the way through instead of my usually 1lb 7oz hook length i normally use on the river. 

I kicked off the swim with a few good bait droppers full of hemp seed and maggot to make sure i had a decent amount of food on the bottom of the river and began trotting away fishing slightly over depth so the bait trickled along the river bed at a slower speed than the river, this was a method that has worked on this river before so i was confident it would catch me few fish.

The method worked all right and caught me endless amounts of fish the only problem being they were all small "barry minnalows" time and time again the float buried and on the end was one of these small fish.  When you look closely at a minnow its amazing to see just how colourful these fish are i have never really taken the time to take a close look at these smaller species of fish in our rivers they really are a nice looking fish and if they went to a couple of ounces i am sure you would struggle to find a more colourful species of fish swimming in our lakes and rivers. 

I was not too bothered by the minnows as i have fished the River Dane for a few years now and on there you can catch minnows for quite some time and then you will trot through a few times with nothing and you know that a group of chub have moved on so i was working on that principle on this river.  Three hours in and there was no let up on the constant stream of minnows and i was more shocked at not even getting a dace or a perch like i had last time the only consolation i had was if i was getting the minnows i knew i was going down on the same line as my bait and surely it was only a matter of time and with that same thought in my head i thought maybe giving the swim a rest might do the trick so i fed two more droppers of hemp and went to see how my uncle was faring. 

Settling down into my uncles peg with my flask of hot vimto in hand we discussed our predicament as he had experienced the same session as me apart from the fact he had caught a few dace.  It was during our chat we both saw a pike lying towards the bottom of my uncles keep net and then it literally rolled on top of his keep net, never seen a pike literally lying on top of a keep net before, i have seen the attacking the net trying to get at the fish but not just lying on the net, a quick movement from one of us saw the pike shoot off into the river even a jack like this could be the reason the fishing was so slow especially on such a narrow river.  We both decided to give it another hour in the swim before we would consider changing swims. 

Returning back along the path to my swim i glanced through the trees at my box and low and behold sat on my bait waiter as bold as brass was a young robin just helping himself to my box of maggots.  As i approached he nicked one last maggot and made a fast exit from the swim.  As i settled back into my swim this cheeky chap kept on nipping back to my side tray but could i get a picture could i hell as like!  I did manage though over the next hour to get this video of the cheeky chap.

The hour passed with little change so i quickly packed away my gear and got out my pike kit and one of the deadbaits and headed off to my uncles swim.  He had also not had any joy but did say the pike had been about again, he let his fish go and i had a quick 10 minutes trying for the pike, it took two casts to trick the little jack into taking and boy did he fight above his weight! finally on the bank he was a beautifully marked little jack and as you can see from the bottom picture even at this age he is more than equipped for the job of eating other fish.

We moved onto another swim and in this swim we could literally see each other fishing as we where only around 20 yards  apart.  My uncle got the ball rolling with a few grayling and dace and of course more minnows while i had around 10 minutes of catching minnows before i struck into something solid and like an electric shock up my arm i felt the fish kick and go hard for the roots of a tree it did not half wake me up as all morning i had been striking into no resistance so to be smacked round the face with something so solid really took me by surprise.  

i kept the rod low and dipped the tip under the water to reduce the chance of the fish snagging me on any roots and held firm putting my faith in my knots and the size 18 hook on the other end in these situations you have to give no quarter at all and only give line if you really don't feel your gear is going to hold.  The line and hook held and the fish moved slowly into the middle flow and i got a glimpse of a golden flank but not enough to show whether it was a barbel or a chub and with that the fish made another break for the tree roots which luckily i managed to halt and that run seemed to take the fight from the fish and a big pair of white rubber lips surfaced as the chub took a big breath of air and slip over the landing net! on a poor days fishing this was a result and i was made up. 

At a smidgen under 4lb it was not the biggest fish but more than welcome on a day like we had experienced and goes to show a few minutes in the right swim is work more than hours in the wrong one and with that i decided next time we fish this river i am going to be a lot more mobile and fish as many swims as i can during the day as the one swim approach just does not seem the way to go on this river.

Sunday: Rixton clay pits 7am till 12

This weekend i managed to get out on the bank on both Saturday and Sunday which has been unusual for me since the birth of out little girl because i always like to spend the Sunday with the family but this week was different as there was a short window on the Sunday for me to wet a line.

With only a few hours available in the morning i chose to fish rixton clay pits on the pole i fed a line straight out in front on maggot and a swim to the tree line margin to my right where i pinged over the odd few casters.  To be honest the action was slow and it was not till the last hour and a half the bream moved in and i caught the majority of the fish.  I think it was down to using maggot as i have experienced a few times on this water that pinkie can be what they want and they just don't settle on taking maggot and on reflection i am almost certain this was the case on this session as well.

The session was an enjoyable one none the less and it was great to get a few fish on the pole but the session really did fly by and it was time to pack up in no time what so ever.

till next week 

tight lines 

Danny

River, Stillwater, thunder and lightning i love fishing!!

A warm welcome to my weekly blog update a few weeks ago I mentioned about me working with a company about getting the blog featured on another format and I am pleased to announce that Dannys Angling Blog will now be featured in the blogs section of the Fishing Uk phone app.  It will involve me finding time to update the blogs onto the App but I am hoping to at least get a few of the most popular blog posts over there in the coming weeks if I can find time but for now I am really pleased to have been approached about this opportunity and look forward to working with Fishing Uk to make this part of the app as good as possible.

As I mention quite often on this blog I receive a lot of emails from readers of the blog and really enjoy spending time replying to all the questions I am asked and reading what people think of the blog I write.  I received one such email this week that made me feel really proud, it was an email from Adam Liversage who wrote to me expressing how much he had enjoyed the blog and how it had inspired him to write his own angling blog.  I have to admit that although the stats clearly show the blog is quite popular I don’t ever imagine people reading my blog as I write it so the fact that someone not only reads my blog but is inspired by what I write to start their own meant a great deal to me.

The blog he writes is well written and is updated very regular with 10 posts in June and 14 in July and I am sure if he keeps that level of posting going along with such detail he will have a really successful blog on his hands in a few months’ time.  I wish him all the luck for the future with his blog and I personally look forward to spending time reading and being inspired to go fishing by his

Angling adventures.

Here is a link to his blog:  http://sevenoaksangling.blogspot.co.uk/

News that caught my eye this week was the reported capture of a new British Record Eel at 13lb 8oz from a commercial fishery.  The owner of the fishery and capture of the eel was apparently fishing for carp at the time when he hooked into the fish of a lifetime.  There has been much speculation on the internet forums and facebook as to whether or not this fish is a record fish but I know first-hand with my uncles near record dace last year how a much a picture can be scrutinised and I say if the guy has caught this fish and put it on some scales and that’s what it read then so be it and leave it to the British record rod caught fish panel to either honour or disprove this claimed record eel.   Below is a link to the picture of the eel for those who have not seen it and want to make their own mind up on it.

link: http://www.dragoncarpdirect.com/fishonfriday/2013/07/8567/

Later on in this blog update you will read about mine and my uncles trip to the River Dee on Sunday and although I really enjoyed the fishing session there was something else that pleased me more than catching a nice net of fish and that was the variety of species and the size of the fish we caught.   Below is a picture of the final net of fish from the Sunday session.

Now when I say the size of the fish most people automatically think I am talking about a pristine net of 2lb roach and although I would be over the moon with a net like that this net fills me with just as much joy as it contains fish from this year’s fry through to mature fish approaching maybe 10-12 ounces.  This is a great sign that the river is in good condition and year on year is building fish stocks naturally and is in fact now a self-sustained fish population and you know what it is great to see.  Also included in the net are some stonking gudgeon and again a fish that it is great to see as in winter they don’t really get a look in with the big shoals of dace about but encouraging to see them not only surviving but actually thriving in this river and in all it bodes well for the future.  The one thing to remember is to appreciate times like this as we know all too well just how fast things can change and the Dee has first-hand experience of major pollution incidents so fingers crossed lessons have been learned and we don’t see the likes of that again.

On to this weeks fishing

Nice session on Rixton clay pits

  Work has been so busy of late with a new project going live and at times its seemed the systems would never be ready come go live but thankfully all has gone to plan but it has meant many a ling evening in work getting it to this stage and this coupled with being an person who is addicted to angling has meant I have not been spending as much time as I would like with my family so I rectified that with a well-deserved day off work on Friday and boy did it feel god to just take a day away from the hustle and bustle of work and just let my hair down and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

With Friday out of the way my mind obviously turned towards where I would be wetting a line at the weekend.  My uncle was not available to fish in the Saturday so a cheeky evening session was planned with him for Sunday afternoon and I was torn between Curlston Mere and Rixton Clay Pits.  I made my mind up to fish rixton as I wanted a steady silvers session and had I gone Curlston I knew the carp would move in on me and I was not in the mood for the messing around that goes with targeting silvers and carp.

Arriving at Rixton car park I quickly unloaded the car and made my way to one of the ready made pegs and quickly set about getting ready to start fishing.  I set up in line with the edge of the island in front of me to give me a feature to line up with to make sure I was fishing the same line all day.

I am often asked what makes me decide when to fish the pole and when to fish the float rod and I normally answer that unless one method is more adaptable to the situation i.e I wouldn’t use a float rod if I wanted to fish tight to a far bank margin shelf on a commercial, then I would normally fish the pole on a Stillwater as I spend a lot of my year trotting the river with a float rod so I like to make the most of using my pole at any opportunity during the summer months on the still waters.

The set up for the day was to fish blue hydro elastic in the pole with a 3lb line down to a 1lb 7oz hook length with a size 20 hook.  The bait for the day was a pint of white maggot fished over a bed of Dynamite Baits Silver X ground bait which I hoped would catch me a mixed net of silver fish.  I always find it best when silver fishing to feed the ground bait in the pole cup to get a nice bed of feed tight to the area I am fishing and then use the catapult to feed the maggots as this generally spreads the bait over a wider area and draws the fish in.

As is always the case with silvers fishing its always the small fish that turn up to the parry first and on this session it was a mixture of small skimmer bream and really small perch.  When I have fished this venue before the better fish have always moved in as a bed of feed is built up but on this occasion it took a good few hours of catching small roach, skimmers and perch before the first few better bream started to show.

The swim was building nicely and I was getting some of the better bream every few puts in but then the swim completely died on me and I thought that a tench might have moved in.  Patience is a big part of fishing and if you haven’t got it then you are always going to struggle, luckily it’s a virtue I have been blessed with so once the bites dies I kept plugging away and I thought I had been rewarded when I lifted into a fish that was slid on the bottom and had elastic oozing out of the pole.  I thought for the life of me it was a tench or carp so I dipped the pole tip under the water to increase the pressure on the fish and with that the fish jumped clear out of the water and revealed itself to be a jack pike I guess around 5-7lb and with that it bit through the line.

I reset up and fished over the same line but it was obvious the pike was still about as the bites where lightning quick as if the fish where darting in and out which suggested to me mr pike was still hungry.  I decided for the last hour to move my line closer in and found a nice depth on three sections of pole and fished the last hour of the session on that line.  I ended the session with a nice net of just over 9lb and I thoroughly enjoyed it although it was very weird going fishing on my own after so many trips with my dad and uncle.

                                                            “Electric Roaching on the Dee”

We experienced one of the most surreal feelings in fishing this week as we travelled along the M56 towards wales on a Sunday afternoon to fish the River Dee.  We normally choose to hit the bank in time for first light for our fishing so navigating the queues of traffic was an alien feeling for me but eventually we hit the main road towards the river dee and with that we hit some serious weather that was causing some localised flooding on the road we were travelling down and seeing the drains bubbling over had me worried about what we were traveling too.   Along the road we travelled through two or three storm showers but was absolutely amazed to arrive at our destination to scorching hot and humid conditions which were not helped at all by the suffocating Himalayan balsam lining the swim.

Setting up the heat and humidity was almost unbearable the air was heavy and uncomfortable but eventually I was at a stage where I was ready to make my first cast at a balmy 4pm.  The tactics are will be well known to regular blog readers but I will go over them again for new readers to the blog, I used my trusty 17ft trotting rod with my Diawa open faced reel loaded with 4lb 4oz line and this was fished down to an old school Bayen Perlon 1lb 7oz hooklength tipped with a size 20 micro barb pattern hook, my float was a 10 number four wire stem stick float.

The session started off with some pristine gudgeon, a fish most anglers would turn their nose up at but on the river at this time of the year the fish are really spread out and it can be a good hour or so before you start to see some of the dace and roach show up.

The gudgeon and odd dace where rolling in as quick as the black clouds, the temperature dropped dramatically and you could feel the freshness of a front of rain moving in even before it hit us and the ferocity of what was about to move our way was given away by the loud rumbles of thunder we could hear In the distance.  The inevitable rain shower arrived and with I the thunder and lightning and I was in no hurry to be attached to 17ft of electricity conducting carbon so it was down with the rod and I waited for the storm clouds to pass.

Must be mad eh:

The rain eventually passed but I had been constantly feeding the swim during the rain and it paid dividends as first put in resulted in this lovely redfin.

The fishing after the storm was really surprising as at this time of the year it is very rare to have such a consistent day on the river but I wasn’t complaining as it soon became very apparent I had a good shoal of roach and dace in front of me, not all massive fish but that float was going under every trot down the swim.  Some of the bites where as fast as the lightning that had just been overhead which suggested to me these where the smaller fry just tipping the maggot and in hindsight castor might have been the bait to combat these and get through to the better fish with more regularity.

To be honest with how our river trips have been so far on the dee it was refreshing to be getting a few fish and my only wish on the day was to have had the whole day ahead of us getting these bites as it would have been a very impressive net come the end of the day.   The lull in the rain was short lived as yet another band of rain moved in and with it some really dark clouds.

The low light levels these clouds provided brought the better roach out to play and me and we picked up some better roach as this picture shows below we had some really nice roach during the session.

The rain moved over again and we were again basking in baking how sunshine, the fish where still biting but we decided to take the opportunity of this gap in the weather to make a move for home as we could see some serious weather in the distance heading our way.  The final net was a joy to witness as it contained a variety of species of fish at all levels of development and it was really reassuring to see a net of fish like this.

We closed the car boot just as the rain started again and thankfully the road we travelled along on the way was clear of flood water.  On the way home the talk was all about what a great session we had just experienced and how good it felt to finally get amongst a decent shoal of fish on the river Dee and we both agreed we couldn’t wait to get back.

Till next time, tight lines

Danny

Carp Quest Blog Completed and Rixon Clay Pits tenching

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update and what a week as the blog’s mini quest to catch a 10lb+ carp reached its climax on Wednesday night and what a relief it was to finally complete this chapter in my angling life.  To whole quest is now complete and you can access it from the main tool bar at the top of the blog or on the following link.

Link to mini blog: http://www.satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/p/10lb-carp-mini-blog.html

Thank you to all the anglers who have contacted me via email, on twitter and the blogs facebook page with their tips and support it has been really appreciated and has helped me in a bog way to keep going on this quest and keep my focus.

The blog last week was set in stone as it was always going to be the week the Calor Grill to go review was to go live but there was a major incident that happened last week I was wanting to cover and that was the disgusting robbery at gun point if an angler on Grey Mist Mere.  The lad just pursuing his hobby was robbed at gun point and his all his tackle and mobile phone stolen, just what is this world coming too when someone fishing a venue in the middle of a housing estate with a secure car park is not safe. 

As readers of the blog will know I was on Grey Mist Mere on the Monday evening when I had a nice tench and I loved the place it was a venue I felt quite safe on and with a good number of passers bye I felt quite happy.  I was looking forward to many more visits to this lovely venue but I have to say this incident has put me off big time in my opinion gun crime pooping its head up in our industry marks a whole new low in our sport and I hope the people who committed this atrocious crime are caught and the lad involved isn’t put off enjoying his hobby.

On to this weeks update

This week’s update will be short compared to normal as I only managed to get out on the bank for a short 4 hour session on Saturday when I took advantage of a short window to try and get a fish on the bank.

The missus making sure I don’t go thirsty with my very own coke for the fishing trip J.

The venue I chose was Rixton Clay Pits as I was fairly confident I could connect with a tench on Rixton given the amount of time had at my disposal.  The seat box, holdall and keep net bag where all left back at home as I decided to take the bare minimum of kit with me as I fully expected to have to walk a fair distance to get a peg with me arriving in the afternoon.

I arrived at the secure car park to be met with only a handful of cars and was really pleased to bump into a long term follower of my blog for the first time on the bank and was pleased to hear he was having a steady day catching some nice bream. After chewing the fat for a while I began my hunt for a free peg and my hunt did not take long as I spotted a peg free not too far down the track.  Setting up took a matter of seconds as my rod was already set up and baited so it was only a case of putting the two halves of the rod together and placing them down on the bite alarm , a scattering of bait and I sat back to enjoy my few hours on the bank. 

This is a swim I have fished before so I knew where to cast to but just as a back up I placed a small hand full of bait in a margin swim.  One of the beauties of this place is how the fish let you know they are on your bait by sending up plumes of tiny bubbles up to the surface as they feed and may times I have seen a line of bubbles go all over the swim and the rod rip off as soon as they reach where I have cast, it does however mean this place can have you tearing your hair out it the bite doesn’t come.

The rod had not been in more than 30 minutes when it screamed off and I lifter into a fish that made a steady run to the right before the line went slack and the hook pulled.  I inspected the line to see that like last week the line was cut clean half way down the hook link material, not another pike surely, what was the chances of catching a pike on a boilie in two separate swims a good 200 yards apart?  I could offer no other explanation so I tied up another rig and cast it out.

Rixton clay pits is one of these venues where if you get the bait right and the feeding you can almost guarantee some bites and again the tench in this venue could not resist as in no time at all I was playing another fish.  The fish came right in under the rod tip and fought link stink but did come up to the surface during the fight to reveal it to be a nice tench around the 4 or 5lb mark.  The fish was nearly beat when it turned suddenly and the line snapped and flew back at me and upon inspecting the line again it cut half way down the hook length so after all the wracking my brain it turned out the 10lb shimano Antares line I bought last yeah has failed and for some reason has become really brittle, luckily I have some ESP striptease so I tied up another rig using this material.

The ESP braid line is a line I use mainly for my river barbell and chub fishing and I was really apprehensive about using it as it is in a weed green colour which I didn’t think would be concealed well on a clay bottom.  The next hour of so trundled by and I say back and just relaxed and took in the peace and tranquillity that comes with this venue and let me not forget my new friend I made on the session in this feisty little fellow, i know robins are really territorial but this guy was seeing off everything!!.

It was during watching Mr robin see off another foe the bite alarm went off again and this time I played the fish really light as I was desperate to get this fish in but like all tench it was not playing by the book at all and put my 1.75lb test curve rod to the test.

Eventually the fish tired and like with most fish as soon as they are up on the top taking big gulps of air they are as good as yours.

The fish went an impressive 6lb 7oz on the scales and is a seasons best for me so far.

This sole fish was as the last of the action for the session and after an interesting chat with Ade about his river Wye exploits I made the short journey home.  My number one job for thi week is to sort out some fluorocarbon line to replace the line that has failed on me this week as I really do have more confidence in it as opposed to the braid for my carp and tench fishing.

This session wasn’t the only time I got out over the weekend as I hit the bank once over that weekend in pursuit of my first double figure carp, please take some time to check it out.

Till next week its

Tight lines

Danny

Calor Grill to Go Review And Rixton Clay Pits Tench

A warm welcome to this week’s blog update, a few weeks back I was approached by Calor Gas to review a product from their summer collection called the Calor Grill to go.  After contacting the company and realising how good they were to deal with I agreed and a few weeks ago I received the product.  I would like to state now I receive no affiliation money for any grills purchased through any links in this review.

Calor Gas Grill to Go Review

Product Information:

“3 in 1 Sear, grill, boil… The reversible cast iron cooking surface provides a stable and versatile cooking platform ideal for Picnics, festivals, camping and those summer months on the beach.”

Technical Data:

Overall Height: 130mm (without cylinder) 
Burner Type: Pressed Steel/Venturi

Overall width: 340mm                            
Gas Category: Direct pressure propane

Heat input: 2.02kW                                      
Gas Flow: 188g/h

Approx 30hrs use per cylinder                      
Run’s on 5kg cylinder             

Regulator supplied                                        
Weight: 6.5kg (grill to go only)

Price: £39.98 (Grill only) or £95.22 (Grill and 5kg Calor Gas Cylinder)

Link To Product Page: Calor Grill to Go Information Page

Link to Buy: http://www.calor.co.uk/shop/product/grill-2-go-portable-bbq/835/

My Review:

In this day and age where the internet dominates and more and more products are purchased online a company’s customer service is becoming a vital part of a successful online retailer’s armoury and as I have mentioned before on this blog I have been on the wrong end of bad customer service so the way a company deal with their customers is really important to me and I have got to say Calor Gas where a joy to deal with both via email and over the telephone and the speed of their reply’s left me feeling confident of their high customer service levels.

The product arrived and was well packaged and my first impressions when I got my hands on the grill were it was well made and felt solid in your hands and was stylish to look at.  The weight of the product is advertised as 6.5kg and I would say the majority of that weight is taken up by the reversible hot plate.  Within the package along with the Grill to Go was the gas valve for the canister, a burner and a heat shield. The product comes with large easy to follow instructions that show you in 4 easy steps how to attach the gas valve to the canister and also how to install the Grill to Go on top of the 5kg Gas cylinder.

 I have been taking my new companion with me on my past few trips to the bank and over that time have used all the different functions that come with the grill which include with flat hot plate, with grill hotplate and with open burner.  I first used the grill without the hotplate on and took a pan and frying pan with me to both cook some dinner and boil water for a warm drink.  The burner plate has 4 metal prongs to sit the pan on and I didn’t have any problems with the pans sliding whist on top of the grill and was really impressed with how solid the grill to go felt once housed on top of the cylinder.  I did do some timing’s whilst on the bank to see just how good it was a heating stuff up and I timed the grill at 2.37 minutes to boil a pint of water on a medium heat. The second and third trip out with the grill I used it with the grill plate on top and again was impressed with how fast it heated up and cooked the food we had taken with us again I did some timings and from placing the stone cold plate on top of a medium flame it began cooking the food which in the test case was bacon in 32.6 seconds.  After using the grill plate I found it very easy to clean when I got home and even a few hours after finishing cooking it cleaned easily in warm soapy water.

To summarise, the Grill to Go is a fantastic piece of kit that I can see being really useful for both anglers looking to spend a few days on the bank and the sole angler out for a full day pursuing their sport.  For me personally I will be using it throughout the summer but I have my eye on this piece of kit for our winter campaign on the River Dee and River Ribble where having a warm meal inside you in the middle of the day is essential we also got great use out of this grill from a family point of view over the warm bank holiday weekend.   I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed both using and reviewing this product on the bank and am really looking forward to using it in the future and it gets a big thumbs up from me.

on to this week’s fishing:-

Saturday 11^th May 2013 – Tench on The beautiful Rixton Clay Pits

After catching that sole tench last week on Rixton I was eager to get back and get amongst some more of those teddy bear eyed tinca’s and with even more field testing of the Grill to go to be done I decided to get their nice and early to get one of the readymade pegs.  My dad joined me on the session and before we even set up we decided to take in the atmosphere of this atmospheric of places, there really is no place like it on the Warrington anglers Card and is probably the only water on the card that I would fish in the summer months if it contained a few more carp for me to target.

There is something about this place that conjures up everything I love about angling from a fishing pint of view it has the vast shoals of silver fish and those hard fighting tench but aside from that the place is set up in such a way that nearly every peg gives you your own piece of water away from other anglers that means you can just bask in this places beauty.

The tactic for the short session was as always with my fishing simple with me fishing a poly ball on the pole for the silvers and a boilie on my sleeper rod for the tench and unlike last week I decided to be a bit more tighter with my baiting up for the tench and concentrated on an overhanging tree to the island which just screamed fish to me.

Almost instantly after baiting up with the boilies the tell-tale bubbling of a feeding fish could be seen over my baited area and full of expectation I set about feeding up my pole swim with groundbait and maggot, fully expecting the sleeper rod to wake for its dormant vigil.   Unfortunately it took a good hour for the first run on the sleeper rod despite the constant bubbling in the area and the result was a fish of 4lb 8oz, an average fish for this venue.

The fishing was patchy on the silvers front with the better fish coming after long spells of tiny perch and roach and none of the decent bream from last week showed up at all but I think that there was a very good reason for all this as all morning there where fish crashing all across the surface almost as if they were being chased, now I put this down to perch but I guess it could have been pike and further evidence of pike being around showed its face later on in the session when my sleeper rod screamed off and I struck into a fish that after a few seconds came off leaving me with a clean cut half way down my hook length.

I continued to persevere on the pole and noticed that changing depth saw me connect with the better fish before they got spooked and moved on and to be honest this game of cat and mouse continued all day long and it was a joy to have to work for my net of silvers.  The better roach form the session are shown below.

A quick glance at my watch shown it to be around 9am and I could feel the bacon in my cooler bag calling me in a big way so it was time to fire up the grill and get a warm breakfast inside us but in true fashion as I was just about to rise form my seatbox to reel in the sleeper rod it sprung into life and boy did this tench fight under the rod tip as it kept deep and made runs for the lillies and the tree line to my right and had my 1.75lb test curve shimano rod bent right over.

The fish finally tamed and on the unhooking mat it was time for a quick picture and for it to be returned safely in the shallow margins to my right.

The fish sulked into the reed clearly not happy with being disturbed on such a lovely morning.  My stomach was rumbling but I wasn’t about to let this stop me getting the rod re-baited and back out there the tench where having it and I wasn’t about to miss out so out went the rod with another good handful of boilies, now for that breakfast.

Spurned of by a nice breakie it was back to the fishing and I continued to catch some more silvers on the pole but unfortunately went on to miss two runs on the sleeper rod one of which was down to the fish coming towards me and me not reeling in fast enough to connect with the fish and the other was the mysterious cut in my hook length which I put down to a pike.

The session moved into the last two hours and I decided to pack the pole away and give the keep net a well needed air dry and spent the last two hours just fishing the single sleeper rod on the spot. The final net of silvers came to just over 8lb but was you can see contained a fair amount of fish showing just how many smaller silvers where about.

I took two more tench in the last two hours of the session and was more than made up with the amount of tench I caught on the day and served as a great confidence boost that again my rigs are working and it’s the fish not me why I am not catching on curlston mere.

The last two hours were also spent admiring the fantastic array of birdlife this place has to offer and as I was armed with my camera for the grill to go photos for the blog I took the opportunity to capture a few of them on film and what a vast array of speciescall this place home with coots, Canadian geese, ducks, ducklings and I think ring necked ducks all calling this place home and that’s without even mentioning the buzzards calling overhead and the woodpeckers echoing through the trees.

As we packed away the family of older ducklings moved in and I have never ever before witnessed baby ducks diving under the water for so long, one of them was more like a submarine than a duck, so I end this part of the blog by introducing you to the Mughty Diving Ducks!

Grey mist mere – Monday 13^th May 2013

Full of confidence from the tench session on the Saturday and with a free evening I decided to venture onto a proper carp venue in Grey Mist mere.  This is the first time I have ever fished a proper carp venue and was taken aback by the sight of large carp honking themselves clear of the surface, a sight I have never seen before and certainly got me going.   With only an hour or so to spend and knowing little about the venue I quickly had a scout round the venue and settled on a swim I thought would produce for a number of reasons.  As always I kept things really simple and was rewarded with a really nice female tench of 5lb 10oz, not the carp I came for but a fish is a fish on a first trip on the venue and more than I could have hoped for.

Till next week I wish you all tight lines

Danny